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Reaching our markets through Destination Canada partnerships

Leveraging Destination Canada’s reach and influence to reach our target markets is an important part of Travel Manitoba’s strategy. In 2016, we are partnering with Destination Canada to reach several important markets, including the U.S., Germany and Canadian millennials. Below are some updates from these programs.

Connecting America

Destination Canada’s return to consumer marketing in the U.S. offered Travel Manitoba the opportunity to enhance our own marketing efforts south of the border. At $10 million over three years, Connecting America has a goal of driving 680,000 additional leisure travellers, resulting in $400 million in incremental visitor spend.

To date, the campaign has generated 94 million in social media impressions in selected markets and over 380,000 views on all publisher partner content. In addition, the campaign has generated over 275,00 leads to partners across the country, including over 8,000 leads to Travel Manitoba and over 13,000 leads to partner sites. There have been a total of 4.28 million views of the Manitoba video created for the campaign and nearly 18 million have watched the pan-Canada video. Video views were on various channels, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and publisher partners.

An article on the wonders of Manitoba, including northern lights and beluga whales, appeared on AFAR, with 4,163 views. Some of Manitoba’s content is still to come, including a Buzzfeed quiz that will match quiz-takers to a Manitoba wildlife excursion, an article on Winnipeg’s art and architecture on Travel + Leisure and a video on RAW: Churchill on Matador Network.

Other elements of Destination Canada’s U.S. efforts include the co-op program, where industry applied to receive a portion of $3 million for U.S. initiatives. Travel Manitoba received funding for its upper Midwest influencer campaign, which saw influencers Alex in Wanderland, Wander the Map, the Vaga Brothers, and Heartbeet Kitchen (upcoming) travel through Manitoba. This program also approved funding for a national fishing program, led by Travel Manitoba.

Millennial Program

Destination Canada’s Millennial program was created to inspire young Canadians to travel their country as celebration of national pride to coincide with Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017. As a partner in this program, Travel Manitoba has provided editorial assistance for the content on the Manitoba page on Far & Wide, an extension of the MUCH brand. This summer, Travel Manitoba hosted two influencers and a film crew from Bell Media to create a video on Churchill’s beluga experience. This video will be airing in February, with additional national advertising to after the video’s release. Destination Canada will also be repackaging content created for its Millennial Program to target the U.S.

German Program

Building on the success from last year’s German influencer campaign, both German YouTuber Ben Jaworsky and Instagrammer Max Muench are returning to Manitoba this fall. Ben will visit Bannock Point and Falcon Trails Resort in the Whiteshell as well as Winnipeg and Riding Mountain National Park. Both became huge fans of Manitoba when they visited last year – spending most of their time in Churchill – and their videos and photos shared with their followers has helped to grown our base of passionate fans in Manitoba. This partnership with Destination Canada not only includes this engagement of key digital influencers, but also publishing partnerships and trade integration.